Cosby Lawyers Accuse Prosecutors of Playing “Gotcha” Game

When defense attorneys for comedian Bill Cosby filed their final motion yesterday before a key pretrial hearing set for Feb. 2, they also accused the prosecutors in the case of playing a “gotcha” game by relying on testimony that a former Montgomery County district attorney had promised not to use.

According to an Associated Press report, current Montco D.A. Kevin Steele said the recently unsealed testimony by Cosby about an incident between himself and Andrea Constand was part of the new evidence that led him to file indecent assault charges against Cosby last month.

Cosby’s attorneys argue that in 2005, then-Montco D.A. Bruce Castor agreed not to prosecute Cosby in exchange for his testifying freely in the civil suit Constand filed against him. That testimony was, in turn, ordered to be sealed when the case was settled out of court. Steele asserts that there’s no such thing as a non-prosecution agreement, and even if there is, there is no record of one being made in this case. (Federal courts have used both non-prosecution agreements and deferred-prosecution agreements as ways of obtaining testimony in corruption cases; this section of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, for instance, explicitly references them.)

The judge hearing the criminal case against Cosby has ruled that the preliminary hearing on Feb. 2 will address the issue of the non-prosecution agreement and its validity exclusively. Castor is slated to testify for the defense at the hearing.

Cosby has denied any wrongdoing. He has been charged with one count of indecent assault, which is a first-degree felony.

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